Welcome to the Dispatches
A collection of reflections from students and faculty on the Westminster Expedition, a semester long academic road trip around the American West
This fall, 18 Westminster students, faculty, and staff will spend the semester on the road, considering environmental issues at the heart of the Western Landscape. We’ll spend our days talking with people involved in managing public lands, restoring ecosystems, and building community where they live. We’ll focus our questions around issues of environmental conflict and cooperation, indigenous life and issues, the meaning of the western landscape, and the history of public lands.
In the evening, we’ll cook dinner for each other and our guests, gather around a campfire (when it’s safe to do so), and have deep discussions of the issues of the day. We’ll also take time to play games and throw impromptu dance parties, swim in rivers and lakes, and build a community of people curious about our place in the world.
This newsletter will consist of dispatches from the road; our chance to think out loud about what we are experiencing. Many of them will be serious, others playful. We hope they will be thought provoking and give you a sense of our experience on the road. The dispatches serve as an invitation for you to join the conversation around the campfire.
In the meantime, tell your friends!